iTunes Store

Opened:	April 28, 2003 (as iTunes Music Store)
Pricing:	Music/TV & Music Videos/Movies : US $0.99/1.99/9.99+ : CA $0.99/2.29 (select videos are available for CA $1.49)/NA : UK £0.79/1.95/NA : EU €0.99/2.49/NA : AU $1.69/3.39/NA : JP ¥150+/400/NA : NZ $1.8/3.6/NA : SEK 10 kr/NA/NA : NOK 8 kr/NA/NA : CH ₣1.50/NA/NA
Platforms:	Mac OS X (not Classic Mac OS); Windows: 2000, XP, Server 2003, Vista; Apple TV; iPod touch; iPhone; Motorola: ROKR E1, SLVR L7, RAZR V3i
Format:	Protected AAC (.m4p) @ 128 kbit/s, audiobooks 32 kbit/s, Protected MPEG-4 Video (.m4v). From May 2007 also Unprotected AAC (.m4a) @ 256 kbit/s (only selected content on "iTunes Plus")
Restrictions:	Music - streaming to five computers every 24 hours, unlimited CDs (seven with an unchanged playlist), unlimited iPods and iPhones.
Catalogue:	More than 6 million songs worldwide, 65,000+ podcasts (USA), 10,000+ music videos (USA), 350+ TV shows (USA), 20,000+ audiobooks (USA), 14 iPod games (USA), 500+ movies (USA)
Preview:	30 seconds (Music, TV, & Video) / 90 seconds (Audiobooks) / 30+ seconds (Movies)
Streaming:	Previews only
Protocol:	iTunes Music Store Protocol (itms://)
Availability:	See article
Features:	Allowance, “Just For You”, Celebrity Playlists, gift certificates and gift cards, iMix, billboard charts, advanced search
Customer support:	Web only; See article
Website:	www.apple.com/itunes

The iTunes Store is an online business run by Apple Inc. which sells media files that are accessed through its iTunes application.

Opening as the iTunes Music Store on April 28, 2003, it proved the viability of online music sales. As of the end of the second week of January, 2008, the store has sold 4 billion songs, accounting for more than 70% of worldwide online digital music sales.Some downloaded files come with restrictions on their use, enforced by FairPlay, Apple's version of digital rights management.

Features and restrictions

Pricing

Songs were originally sold for a single price in all countries but Japan. Music in the store is in the Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) format, which is the MPEG-4-specified successor to MP3. Songs with DRM are encoded at 128 kilobits per second (kb/s), and certain songs are available without DRM and encoded at the higher-quality rate of 256 kb/s (These are known as "iTunes Plus" songs). Songs are priced at US$0.99 in the United States, C$0.99 in Canada, NZ$1.79 in New Zealand, AU$1.69 in Australia, €0.99 in the eurozone (except Slovenia, Cyprus, and Malta) and £0.79 in the United Kingdom. In Norway, songs cost 8.00 NOK per song, in Sweden 9.00 SEK and in Switzerland the price is 1.50 CHF. All European prices are in general comparable and oscillate around €0.99. In Japan, songs sell for JPY 150 or JPY 200. Previews, thirty seconds in length, are available free, prior to buying a song. Most albums cost US$9.99 in the U.S., and volume discounts of up to 20% are available for purchases of more than 25,000 songs.

Television episodes are available for US$2 each and in the UK for £1.89 each, as are short films. Music videos in the US are $1.49 and in the UK for £1.89 each. Feature-length movies sell for US$9.99 for older Movies, US$12.99 for day of release movies, and US$14.99 for movies after release date. TV shows are available in the United States with the United Kingdom only being able to buy a small selection of TV shows as of August 29, 2007.

Games (compatible with 5th generation iPod, iPod classic models and the 3rd generation iPod nano) range from US$0.99 - US$4.99. Podcasts are free.

Movie Rental: Started during macworld 2008 movies range from 2.99 (HD 3.99) or new releases 3.99 (HD 4.99). Movies arrive to the movie rental service 30 days after dvd avaliability. Movies are "new releases" for X months.

There is also a weekly promotion in which one to three songs are available to download for free to logged-in users. Free downloads are available on Tuesdays, and remain free until the following Tuesday. Some artists choose to have select songs available for no charge. This is not available at all iTunes Stores worldwide. Some iTunes television programs have begun the same technique to encourage brand loyalty; although those stay longer. In fact, the iTunes Store used to have a link to "Free TV" on its home page and the TV Shows section's home page which links to a complete listing of free TV shows, however it has disappeared (the page has remained online). Apple still sells free TV episodes; some channels have their own pages of "free Season Premieres".

Availability

To buy files through the store, a user must pay with an iTunes gift card or a credit card with a billing address in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Republic of Ireland, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Republic of the Philippines, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, or the United States. Apple also offers other payment methods (like Paypal) which differ from country to country. Residents in other countries can only buy a gift card from a merchant or download free podcasts and previews. If someone buys a gift card, an address in the country of the gift card must also be provided.

iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store

The release of the iPod touch brought the introduction of the iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store. This version of the iTunes store allows owners of Wi-Fi capable iPods and iPhones to purchase music directly on the portable music device.

Customer support

Apple provides no customer support for the iTunes Store over the phone, though Timothy Noah of Slate has found a customer service line. All customer service inquiries are handled online.

Background

Debuting on April 28, 2003, the iTunes Music Store was the first online music store to gain widespread media attention. Apple's store allows the user to purchase songs and transfer them easily to the iPod through iTunes. The iPod is the only digital music player (besides some Motorola cell phones and the iPhone) that is intended to work with the iTunes Store, although some other digital music players will work with iTunes. The iTunes Music Store launched initially with about 200,000 files available for download.

On 5 September 2007, Apple introduced the iPod touch which included the iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store. An update for the iPhone which included the WiFi Store was released on 28 September 2007.

Catalog content

Music

The store began after Apple signed deals with the five major record labels at the time, EMI, Universal, Warner, Sony Music Entertainment, and BMG (the last two would later merge to form Sony BMG). Music by more than 600 independent label artists were added later, the first being Moby on July 29, 2003.

The store has more than 6,000,000 songs, including exclusive tracks from numerous popular artists. Not all artists are available on iTunes, including some popular ones such as The Beatles, Bob Seger, Garth Brooks and AC/DC, as well as a lack of complete or entire albums from some artists. Some songs are available from the store by "Album Only," meaning the song can only be acquired through the purchase of the entire album, whereas most songs can be downloaded separately from the album they belong to.

New songs are added to the iTunes catalog every day, while the iTunes Store is updated each Tuesday. Apple also releases a 'Single of the Week' and usually a 'Discovery Download' on Tuesdays, which are available for free for one week.

Some artists have had their music removed from the store, such as Radiohead (although their 2007 album, In Rainbows is available, added early 2008), Def Leppard, and The Black Crowes; perhaps the most notable case is the music of Frank Zappa; a significant portion of his music was added to the iTunes store in August 2005 and then in August 2006 removed.

Downloaded songs come with song information (name, artist, album) already filled out, though iTunes provides a free service by Gracenote to do this for songs not purchased from the store, although they must be imported with iTunes. Songs that have an entry in the iTunes Store also come with album artwork. As of the release of iTunes 7, the artwork can be obtained for songs not purchased from the store for free if the user has an iTunes Store account. Purchased songs do not come with lyrics already typed in to the application's window for them; nor does iTunes provide a service for acquiring the missing lyrics. However, they can easily be obtained using a third-party Web site or Dashboard widget.

Sub-divisions

When entering the U.S. music store, there are multiple sub-divided stores that one can go into. These stores are either found under ‘More In Music,’ ‘Genres,’ ‘Pre-Orders,’ ‘Celebrity Playlists’ and ‘Free Downloads.’ Within ‘More In Music,’ one can enter various random stores such as Starbucks Entertainment and iTunes Essentials. Within ‘Genres,’ one can enter music stores that only have one genre such as blues or reggae. There are a total of 20 genres in the U.S. music store. ‘Pre-Orders’ lists albums that one can pre-order before the album is released. ‘Celebrity Playlists’ contains lists of songs chosen and described by celebrities. ‘Free Downloads’ are songs that subscribed iTunes Store users can obtain for free.

On November 1, 2006, Apple created a new category for Latino or Hispanic content, “iTunes Latino”. Telemundo and Mun2 made some of their popular programs available for purchase, becoming the first Hispanic television content in the store. It offers music, music videos, audiobooks, podcasts and television shows in Spanish in a single concentrated area. The brief descriptions given to the content is in Spanish as well as several sub-categories. Gibraltarian Flamenco Metal band Breed 77, released an exclusive album called Un Encuentro to coincide with the launch of “iTunes Latino”. It features 11 songs, all from previous albums, but all sung in Spanish.

Audiobooks

The iTunes Store also includes over 20,000 audiobooks, encoded at 32 kilobits per second. Ninety second previews are offered for every book. These books are provided by Audible.com. This is the same format available if the user signs up directly with Audible.com and chose the "iPod" format. The main difference is that it is unnecessary to sign up for a subscription to get audiobooks as is the case with Audible. A small discount is provided through buying audiobooks through the iTunes Store, but on a selective basis by Apple in comparison to an "always on member discount" if one has an Audible subscription.

Video

In October 2005, Apple announced the latest iPod would be capable of playing video files, which would be sold online through the iTunes Store in the U.S. These videos included 2000 music videos and episodes of popular television programs. Apple made a deal with Disney to be the first supplier of TV shows, the first shows available included episodes of Lost and Desperate Housewives with each episode becoming available the day after it originally aired on broadcast TV. Several short animated films by Pixar are also available.

The selling of videos on iTunes sparked considerable debate as to whether there was a paying audience for programming available for free on TV. As MP3 Newswire pointed out, users are not so much paying for the TV programs themselves. Instead they are really paying for a service that offers the convenience of someone else digitizing free broadcast episodes for them for their portable device, each episode in commercial-free form, and a convenient place to select and download individual shows. Through an updated version of QuickTime Pro, users can create their own videos for the iPod, including digitized versions of programs recorded on their VCR if they wish to take the time and effort to save the cost.

In July 2006, the Aquaman pilot became available for download. It was the first show offered on iTunes that has never aired on a network.

On September 12, 2006, Apple renamed iTunes Music Store to iTunes Store as they began selling feature-length movies through the store. The service debuted with a catalog of 75 films from four Disney-owned studios: Walt Disney Pictures, Pixar, Miramax and Touchstone Pictures.

On the same date, Apple increased the resolution of videos and movies sold on the iTunes Store from 320x240 (QVGA) to 640x480 (VGA).

On November 2006, a series of Pixar short films were added to the Australian Store at a price of $3.39 AU.

Later in December 2006, Apple started releasing full-length film trailers for free in iPod format 320x240, 640x480 Apple format, and HD quality videos.

On January 9, 2007, Apple announced during the Macworld keynote that Paramount Pictures' catalog would be added to the iTunes Store, bringing the total amount of movies up to 250+. The service is currently U.S. only.

On February 12, 2007, a press release announced the addition of movies from Lionsgate to the iTunes store, bringing the total number of movies available to over 400.

On April 11, 2007, Apple announced that MGM Studios has made select titles available on the iTunes store, bringing total movie offerings through iTunes to over 500. MGM stated that it has the largest modern movie library in the world. Its catalog includes such classics as RoboCop, West Side Story, and Mad Max.

On June 11, 2007, it was discovered that Apple was in talks with several Hollywood studios to make their new movies available as movie rentals on iTunes. Titles would be rented for US$2.99 and would expire after a set amount of days.

On August 29, 2007, a selection of TV shows became available in the UK online store at a price of £1.89 per episode, including Lost, Ugly Betty and Desperate Housewives.

On December 16, 2007, a selection of TV shows were added to the iTunes store in Canada at a price of $1.99 per episode.

At the 2008 Macworld Conference & Expo, Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced that the iTunes Store will offer over 1,000 movies for rental by the end of February. The iTunes movie catalog will include content from 20th Century Fox, Warner Bros., Walt Disney Pictures, Paramount Pictures, Universal Studios, and Sony Pictures Entertainment. Renting a standard definition catalog title will cost $2.99, while new releases will cost $3.99. High definition titles will cost $1 more respectively.

iPod games

Main article: iPod games

On 12 September 2006, the iTunes Store began to offer additional games for purchase with the launch of iTunes 7, compatible with the iPod classic or iPod nano with video playback. Launch titles included: Bejeweled, Cubis, Mini Golf, Mahjong, Pac-Man, Tetris, Texas Hold 'Em, Vortex, and Zuma. The games cannot be played in iTunes. On 19 December 2006, iTunes released two more games for purchase: Sudoku and Royal Solitaire. On 27 February 2007 iTunes released Ms. Pac-Man. On 24 April 2007, Apple Inc also released iQuiz at a purchasing price of US$0.99 (UK£0.79). Additional 'Trivia Packs' can be added to iQuiz through the use of the iQuiz Maker software. On 22 May 2007, iTunes released a version of the Lost video game, based on the TV series of that name. Also, on 17 July 2007 The Sims Bowling was added. On July 29, EA released The Sims Pool, before Sony BMG's first game "Musika" on August 7, 2007. A game called Phase which is similar to Guitar Hero and made by Harmonix was added to the store on September 13, 2007. The game allows users to use their own songs in the game.

Market share and milestones

Since its launch, the iTunes Store has crossed many milestones. In the first 18 hours, the store sold about 275,000 tracks and more than 1,000,000 in its first 5 days. When released for Windows in October 2003, iTunes was downloaded more than 1,000,000 times in the first 3 days, selling more than 1,000,000 songs in that period. On December 15, 2003 Apple announced that it had crossed 25 million songs sold.

In January 2004 at the Macworld Conference & Expo in San Francisco, Steve Jobs announced (Sellers, 2004) that an unnamed person had purchased $29,500 worth of music. On March 15, 2004, Apple announced that iTunes Music Store customers had purchased and downloaded 50 million songs from the iTunes Music Store. They also reported that customers were purchasing 2.5 million songs a week which translates to a projected annual run rate of 130 million songs a year. The 50 millionth song was "The Path of Thorns" by Sarah McLachlan.

On April 28, 2004, the iTunes Music Store marked its first anniversary with 70 million songs sold, clear dominance in the paid online music market and a slight profit. The store also offers hundreds of movie trailers and music videos, in an attempt to boost soundtrack sales. In the conference, Steve Jobs reiterated that a subscription service is still not in the interest of customers and reported that only 5 million of the 100 million songs offered in the Pepsi giveaway campaign were redeemed, which he blamed on technical problems in Pepsi distribution. According to an Apple Press Release released on August 10, 2004, the iTunes Music Store is the first store to have a catalog of more than one million songs. Also, the iTunes Music Store at that point maintained an over 70% market share of legal music downloads.

On September 1, 2004 the iTunes Music Store had surpassed 125 million songs sold. On October 14, 2004 the iTunes Music Store had surpassed 150 million songs sold. On December 16, 2004 the iTunes Music Store had surpassed 200 million songs sold. Ryan Alekman of Belchertown, Massachusetts, USA, bought the 200 millionth song, which was one of the tracks on U2's digital box set The Complete U2. On January 24, 2005 the iTunes Music Store sold a quarter of a billion songs worldwide.

On March 2, 2005, the iTunes Music Store had surpassed 300 million songs sold. On May 10, 2005 Apple announced that it had sold over 400 million songs. On July 5, 2005 Apple announced a promotion counting down to half a billion songs sold. On July 18, 2005 Apple announced that it had sold 500 million songs. Amy Greer of Lafayette, Indiana, USA, bought the 500 millionth song, "Mississippi Girl" by Faith Hill.

On October 31, 2005 Apple announced that iTunes Music Store customers had purchased and downloaded 1 million videos since the launch of video support on October 12, 2005. On December 6, 2005 Apple announced that iTunes Music Store customers had purchased and downloaded over 3 million videos. On January 10, 2006 Apple announced that the iTunes Music Store had sold 850 million songs and 8 million videos.

On February 23, 2006 Apple announced that the iTunes Music Store had sold 1 billion songs and 15 million videos. The billionth song was “Speed of Sound” by Coldplay, purchased by Alex Ostrovsky of West Bloomfield, Michigan. On September 12, 2006 Steve Jobs announced in his "It's Showtime" keynote that Apple had 88% of the legal U.S. music download market, 1.5 billion songs downloaded, and 45 million videos sold. On January 10, 2007 Apple announced that the iTunes Store had sold more than 2 billion songs, 50 million television episodes, and over 1.3 million feature-length films.

On April 9, 2007 Apple announced that the iTunes Store had sold more than 2.5 billion songs. On April 11, 2007 Apple announced that the iTunes Store had sold more than two million movies, making it the world’s most popular online movie store.

On July 31, 2007 Apple announced that the iTunes Store had sold more than 3 billion songs.

On January 15, 2008 Apple announced that the iTunes Store had sold more than 4 billion songs.

Internationalization

Originally only Mac OS X users who had credit cards with a U.S. billing address could buy songs with the service, but Steve Jobs, the CEO of Apple, announced plans to support both Windows and non-American users. The Windows version of iTunes and support for the Windows platform from the iTunes Music Store were announced on October 16, 2003, with immediate availability. Beginning in 2004, the service has become available in a number of countries outside the U.S.:

• On 15 June 2004, the iTunes Music Store was launched in France, Germany, and the United Kingdom. Songs were priced at €0.99 for France and Germany, and UK£0.79 for the United Kingdom. According to an Apple Press Release, the European iTunes Music Stores sold a combined total of 800,000 songs in one week, with 450,000 of those songs sold in the UK.
• On 26 October 2004 nine countries were added to the iTunes Music Store in a large EU store expansion: Austria, Belgium, Finland, Greece, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, and Spain. This extended availability to all countries that were then in the Eurozone except for the Republic of Ireland, where the iTMS became available on 6 January 2005. These countries also pay €0.99 for songs, and formerly shared catalogues. The Italian and Portuguese store have been localized (language-wise). Some of these stores also currently lack music videos (e.g. Portugal). The French, German, American, and British stores are localized for their respective countries and have different catalogs. On 3 December 2004 the British Office of Fair Trading referred the iTunes Music Store to the European Commission because it prevents consumers in one EU country from buying music from stores in other EU countries, in violation of EU free-trade legislation; the immediate cause of the referral was because the €0.99 price charged in the eurozone equates to UK£0.68 in sterling, rather than the UK£0.79 actually charged there. The iTunes Store is not yet available in any of the countries that joined the Eurozone after the original launch of the store—Slovenia (2007), Cyprus (2008) or Malta (2008).
• The iTunes Music Store was launched in Canada on December 3, 2004; Canadian customers pay CA$1 per song.
• On 10 May 2005, the iTunes Music Store "went live" for Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, and Denmark, after about two weeks of speculation about these countries (and Australia) receiving the store.
• Apple officially launched the iTunes Music Store in Japan on 4 August 2005, with 1 million songs available; 90% of songs are priced at JP¥150. In the next four days the store had sold one million songs – the pace faster than that of the U.S. store. In addition to a long delay, Apple failed to have one set price for singles. Pundits speculated that this may have indicated the introduction of new price structure to the rest of the stores in future, in favor of record labels who would like to see higher prices for new songs. Such a structure has yet to materialize.
• The iTunes Music Store was launched in Australia on 25 October 2005. Individual songs are priced at AU$1.69 per track, album prices vary but are generally priced at AU$16.99. The recent release of video-capable iPods also saw the store launch with music videos and short films by Pixar available for AU$3.39 each, although TV episodes are not currently available. Stores in the Coles Group retail chain sell iTunes Music Cards in denominations of AU$20, AU$30, AU$50, AU$70, and AU$100. iTunes Gift Cards (as they are now known) are now also available in many more stores such as JB Hi-Fi, David Jones, and the Woolworths chain of stores. Access was inadvertently given to some people in New Zealand, too. Failed negotiations with the Sony BMG label (which had delayed the launch of the Australian iTMS significantly) meant that none of that label's artists were available at the time of launch. Sony music was later added starting on January 17, 2006.
• On November 1, 2006, the store started offering a range of Latino content including television shows and music.

• The iTunes Store (along with a local Apple Online Store) was officially launched in New Zealand on December 6, 2006, although New Zealand users had briefly been able to buy from the Australian store when it first opened until that loophole was closed. Individual songs are priced at NZ$1.8, music videos at NZ$3.6 and most albums at NZ$18.
• Many users from central and south Europe are still waiting for their version of iTunes.

Note that only the Austrian, French, German, Dutch, Italian, Spanish, and parts of the Japanese store have been translated into their respective official or de facto languages, the remainder of the stores are in English but the content is localized to the respective country. Also, iTunes has a very western-centric view as music in all non-west European languages are classified under the genre "World". For example, songs from African musicians and songs from Indian musicians are all classified as World.

File format

Most songs are encoded using FairPlay-encrypted 128 kbit/s AAC streams in an mp4 wrapper, using the .mp4 extension. AAC achieves better sound quality than the MP3 format when compared at the same bitrate.

While licenses to the AAC compression and the mp4 file format are readily available, Apple had not agreed to license its proprietary FairPlay encryption scheme to other hardware manufacturers until recently, so only Apple's iPod was able to play AAC files encrypted with Apple's FairPlay technology, apart from computers with iTunes or QuickTime installed. On September 7, 2005 Motorola and Apple announced the Motorola ROKR E1, which comes with built in iTunes software and can also play songs from the iTunes Store. About two months later the second cell phone with iTunes, the Motorola RAZR V3i, was announced. The Motorola SLVR L7, released in early 2006, became the second actual phone available on the commercial market to support songs encoded by iTunes or purchased on the iTunes Store.

Currently the digital booklets included with some albums are in PDF. With the present iPod software, these files are not readable on iPods.

As of 29 May 2007 tracks on the EMI label have been made available in a DRM-less format called iTunes Plus. These files are unprotected and are encoded in the AAC format at 256 kilobits per second, twice the bitrate of standard tracks bought through the service. iTunes accounts can be set to display either standard or iTunes Plus formats for tracks where both formats exist.

Digital rights management

Apple's FairPlay digital rights management (DRM) is integrated into iTunes, which manages songs purchased from iTunes Store. iTunes relies on FairPlay to implement three main restrictions:

• Users can make a maximum of seven CD copies of any particular playlist containing songs purchased from the iTunes Store.
• Users can access their purchased songs on a maximum of five computers.
• Songs can only be played on a computer with iTunes or an iPod, other mp3 devices do not support FairPlay encoded tracks.

There are no restrictions on number of iPods to which a purchased song can be transferred nor the number of times any individual song can be burned to CD.

When Apple initially introduced FairPlay, songs purchased through iTunes had limits of three simultaneous machines and ten CD copies of a playlist. The adjustment to the current limits was implemented with the introduction of iTunes 4.5 in April of 2004, presumably as the result of re-negotiations Apple had with major labels.

Apple's DRM technology is not unbreakable. Various programs been written to remove the FairPlay wrapper and allow the AAC files to be used without technological restriction. More simply, a user can convert protected files to unprotected MP3 format by burning them to an audio CD, then ripping them back to iTunes. (Some audio quality is lost in this transcoding from one lossy format to another.) An alternative though equally lossy way of transcoding the files is to record the "Wave Out Mix" using